The Rules
by I am No Dartboard
Summary: Someone sets down the rules for the Leverage crew. Mainly goofiness, with the team laying down the law on each other. All characters, no pairings.
1. The Homecoming Job

Leverage: The Rules

All characters, no pairings.

A/N: This was taken from several similar stories from different fandoms. To my knowledge, Leverage does not have one yet. I thought it deserved a turn.

WILL EVENTUALLY HAVE SPOILERS FOR ALL EPISODES!!!! In this chapter: The Homecoming Job.

* * *

Nate walked into the office the day after delivering the money to Corporal Perry. He went to the kitchen to grab a beer, then wandered into the meeting room to check to see if any of the thieves had arrived yet.

Hardison and Parker were missing, but Sophie and Eliot were in their offices. As he passed through the hall to his own room, Nate noticed Eliot laughing to himself. That was frightening enough, coming from that one. But Sophie had a grin on her face that Nate recognized all too well.

That was her regular, bona fide, cat-ate-the-canary, _thief_ look.

Sophie had a look on her face that she only got after a successful con.

Eliot was laughing.

In Nate's book, those two things could not add up to anything good.

There was nothing at the end of the hall to explain the situation to Nate, and he didn't really want to ask Eliot or Sophie. So, ignoring his confusion, he went into his office and sat down.

Maybe fifteen minutes went by, while Nate surfed the internet for news about their scam –of which there was plenty –and tried not to think about what his coworkers were up to, before he heard the door bang.

After that, it couldn't have been a full minute before Hardison's anguished cry was heard. Nate bolted up out of his seat and slammed the door opened, rushing outside to the hacker's aid. Sophie and Eliot followed more slowly, grinning at each other.

It wasn't until Nate nearly tripped over a sofa that he noticed what Hardison was staring at, now more angrily than anguished.

Written on one wall was a careful, neat heading.

The Rules

Underneath that was what, apparently, was the first rule.

1. Never again shall Nathan Ford wear a lei.

"Who wrote this?" Nate demanded, turning to glare at the thieves. Parker, oddly enough, had appeared out of nowhere, so the entire team was assembled.

Everyone shrugged innocently. Nate looked first to Sophie, who was most likely to comment on his costume for their con at the storage facility.

"I just noticed it when I came in," she answered in a sweet voice that clearly asked how he could possibly blame her. "I had nothing to do with it."

Nate turned next to Eliot, who was there –and _laughing_ –earlier on. But the shorter man just shook his head.

"Wasn't me," was all he said.

His next guess was Parker, who gave him a wide-eyed look of total blamelessness. "Who, me?" she asked. "No!" she laughed loudly. "Don't be silly."

Nate turned his eyes on Hardison, but the hacker gave him a hurt look, hauntingly similar to Sophie's. "Man, I'm as surprised as you are," he answered. "What, you think I made that very manly noise for something I knew was going to happen? There's a reason I'm not the grifter here, you know."

"Why _did_ you squeal like that?" Eliot wanted to know. "Kinda loud, since it wasn't even about you."

"I didn't squeal?"

"Then why did you shriek in such a manly way?" Parker questioned. Hardison looked at her suspiciously, but there was no trace of mockery in her expression, so he decided to answer her.

"Someone wrote on the wall," he explained sheepishly. "That's not going to wash off, you know."

Parker nodded calmly, and pulled a Sharpie out of her pocket. She smiled at the others as she stepped forward, and wrote very carefully on the wall underneath the first rule.

2. Don't write on the walls.

And then she turned around to face Hardison, smiling brightly. "There!" she exclaimed. "Now nobody will mess up your nice walls again."

"Isn't that a little contradictory?" Hardison asked hesitantly. "I mean, you're writing on the walls to tell people not to write on the walls.

But Sophie had a solution. Calmly, she stepped forward and plucked the pen out of Parker's hand. Her handwriting was smoother and more fancy than Parker's and the mystery writer's, more like cursive than the blonde's bold print or the bland, unrevealing script above it.

Of course, they were all criminals. Any one of them could easily disguise their handwriting.

Sophie, however, wasn't even trying as she wrote rule 2.5.

2.5. Unless you're writing a rule.

"Are we seriously _keeping_ these things?" Hardison demanded, looking more to Nate than Sophie.

Their leader seemed to consider this for a moment, but it was the grifter who answered for him. "Why not?" she replied. "Four thieves and an honest man, all working in the same building? We're going to need some ground rules."

Nate nodded in agreement. "Why not?" he echoed.

"You think we'll actually keep them?" Eliot asked sarcastically.

It hadn't occurred to Nate until then that the group might not abide by the rules written on the walls. But they were thieves, after all. Following the rules wasn't exactly their forte.

But Parker had a solution. Taking her pen back from Sophie, she wrote on the wall one more time for the day.

3. You have to follow the rules.


	2. The Job with the Dinosaurs

A/N: This is turning out to be quite fun to write. If you're liking reading this as much as I'm liking writing this, then drop a review! I'm not going to insist that you do, or I won't write, or anything like that, it's just polite. ;)

By the way, no spoilers in this chapter. It deals loosely with a fictional job. If anyone wants to write a longer fic about what might have happened before this chapter, be my guest, just drop me a PM first, please.

* * *

Immediately after the job with the dinosaurs, Sophie had gone home to shower and change. She was exhausted, dirty, and there was something on her blouse that simply shouldn't exist in nature.

But, tired as she was, the grifter dragged herself into the office only a few hours later. On the wall was a myriad of new additions.

4. Having seen _Jurassic Park_ is a prerequisite for being human.

5. No it's not.

6. And how would you know, Eliot? You've never even _seen_ it.

7. Exactly.

Somehow, that man managed to be as monosyllabic in writing as he was when he spoke. And Sophie was almost positive that the other writer was Hardison.

As she entered, Nate was adding his own rule

8. This is a list of rules, not a chat room. Argue in person.

"May I?" Sophie asked, holding her hand out for the pen.

Smiling, Nate offered it to her. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

9. If you don't know what it is, don't throw it at people.

"Or blow it up," grumbled Eliot, entering with a beer and an ice pack held to his arm.

9.5. Or blow it up.

On an afterthought, Sophie added another one before this list got out of hand.

10. Actually, if you don't know what it is, don't touch it, eat it, throw it, explode it, or do _anything_ whatsoever with it until you get confirmation that it isn't dangerous.

"Good plan," Eliot agreed, and wandered into the meeting room to watch sports.

Sophie smiled at Nate and put the pen down on the nearest table. "I'm starting to like this list," she commented.

Her old friend nodded. "Hopefully, it will be some use, eventually."

The grifter shrugged. "Have you seen anyone break any of the rules since they were written?"

Nate considered it and ran through the rules in his head. It had been too soon since their last job for even Parker to have had a chance to find, throw, eat, touch, and (or?) blow up an unknown substance.

Rules 4-7 weren't exactly technical rules, although he had heard Eliot grouchily agree to watch _Jurassic Park _with Hardison someday. No one had held an argument on the walls since he had posted his own rule about that.

They hadn't written on the walls, either, except to write rules. Not that they ever had done so before the rules were posted, but it was still comforting.

"Have you worn a lei?" Sophie asked, perfectly timing her question to his thoughts running to that first rule.

Nate shook his head. "Well –no."

"Good." She smiled. "Then all is right in the world."

She didn't say whether that was because the team was following the rules, or because of her aversion to Nathan Ford wearing leis.

Sighing, Nate took the pen from where she had put it and wrote another rule on the wall.

11. Being cryptic is obnoxious. Don't do it.


End file.
